Forger's Updated Guide to the Magus

[Iwasforger03]

Forger's Updated Guide to the Magus

Ladies and Gentlemen, my Sister and Brother Magi, I welcome you to my small contribution to the world of Pathfinder. I welcome your feedback on this endeavor.

I have immense respect for Walter and his Guide to the Magus. However, Walter has not, to my knowledge, updated his guide since he posted it. Certainly not in a long time. So I made the decision to provide an update using all the new feats, spells, and features that have appeared since Walter published his Guide to the Magus. This is intended purely as a supplement to Walter's work, and is not a replacement.

Thank you.

[deuxhero]

Legacy of Fire "traits" aren't actually traits. They're a bonus for a specific background in that AP that predates traits (it's 3.5, not PF).

Naive is underrated as a drawback. Even with the drawback, using an improvised weapon against you will still be worse than a real one. Dirty trick stings more, but it's really light for half a feat (you can also fluff it as being "professionally" trained with little experience in down and dirty stuff.).

Greensting Slayer loses weapon enhancement and needs to blow in exchange for sneak attack that 1: advances slowly 2: CAN ONLY BE USED ON ONE ATTACK. Take Arcane Deed (Evasive) instead.

Student of Philosophy, Clever Wordplay and Pragmatic Activator are good traits to look at, replacing a dump stats with a main one.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

(Male) Lashunta are also a good race for Magi. Males have one of the very few +Str/+Int combos.

[avr]

No mention of the Frostbite spell? Less immediate damage than Shocking Grasp but it can be used for 1 attack/level, and it combines very nicely with Rime Spell as a debuff.

Kensai and/or Bladebound are probably the most commonly used archetypes, followed by Hexcrafter. It seems odd you don't mention them at all & you do mention several less common ones.

Greensting Slayer is a trap. Losing the main uses of arcane pool for a small amount of sneak attack damage on at most 1 attack/round (taking your swift action as well!) is a poor trade.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

If you could talk about some of the stuff in Inner Sea Magic, that would be awesome.

[Iwasforger03]

Some of you clearly skipped the beginning of my guide. Excepting skills and Class abilities (and even then, I skipped Magus Arcana), I don't cover ANYTHING Walter already covered. Walter already covered Bladebound, Kensei, and Hexcrafter.

Frostbite is covered by Walter, and really, it is not all that good.

I utterly missed the loss of enhancements with Greensting Slayer. Entirely my fault. Thanks for catching that.

As to Inner Sea Magic, you are right, I also missed that. I don't have a copy so I'll have to dig one up first.

Legacy of Fire adventure path is for Pathfinder. It even uses the Pathfinder trait system, and yes, I know this because I have a copy of the Player's guide. The back of the bloody thing even states it is by paizo, mentions the web address paizo.com/pathfinder, and has "Pathfinder Chronicles" printed on it. I'm not sure where you got your information, but it is incorrect or out of date. Finding Lost relatives is the rename of the Campaign Trait "Finding Haleen," on page 11 of the Player's guide.

Thank you for the tip on the Male Lashunta.

[Kurald Galain]

Some of you clearly skipped the beginning of my guide. Excepting skills and Class abilities (and even then, I skipped Magus Arcana), I don't cover ANYTHING Walter already covered. Walter already covered Bladebound, Kensei, and Hexcrafter.

Then you should probably call it an "addendum" instead of an "updated guide". After all, if you're not covering the items he covered, then it isn't an updated guide

Strength may be good at later levels, but it's also better at very low levels, i.e. any time before you actually get dervish dance. Other than str vs dex, you should cover int vs cha (i.e. eldritch scion archetype).
If Shocking Grasp is the quintessential magus spell, why on earth doesn't it have the top rating?
Note that there are alternative stat boosts for both aasimar and tiefling, such as a +2 to str.
I don't think there's any reason to give green (or even blue) rating to flamboyant arcana and scroll mastery. Frankly FA is entirely not worth it, and while any magus should use scrolls, you use those for utility spells, not save-or-lose.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I have some things to say after giving it another look:

The Eldritch Scion is a terribly written archetype. I mean, it takes away Recall, yeah. But not improved spell recall. But one problem: you have never prepared spells, so there is nothing to recall. It limits your stuff to much for the 'gift' of spontaneous casting.

The Sleepy trait looks pretty cool; however, there is one more thing, you have to sleep 12 hours to gain 8 hours of rest. Granted, when combined with a Ring of Sustenance/Restful armor you only sleep 6 hours, but it bears mentioning there is a downside besides the -2.

Lastly, you... completely write off the Champion mythic path. Dual Pathed Archmage/Champion is the Magus style; Always a Chance isn't the only ability; Ever Ready is good, Fleet Warrior is amazing, Precision is a damn good combo with a Always a Chance, Critical Master, and Shatter Spells. If you have the ability to take that and you don't, you don't count as a magus in my book. Yes, we can just cast Dispel Magic, but this ability seems... Better.